Last updated November 26, 2024

How the South Australian National Football League built a more human-centric culture

Writer, Culture Amp

Australian rules football is an exciting, fast-paced game, but when the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) set out to develop a more human-centric performance process, they intentionally took it slow.

SANFL is the peak governing body for Australian rules football, or “footy” as fans call it, in South Australia. The organization, founded in 1877, wanted to move away from an old-fashioned, paper-based performance framework to a more consistent, digital approach.

Belinda Haines, SANFL’s People & Culture Manager, has worked with the organization for 12 years. She recently joined Lauren Oldham, Senior People Scientist, Culture Amp, to share what she learned while leading SANFL’s performance evolution.

SANFL already had what Belinda calls “a healthy culture of connectedness” because of employees’ love of sport and sense of community, but they didn’t have a way to articulate what the employee experience was like – or how each person’s work correlates with the drivers behind the work. She says, “We just relied on that people were mates and getting along, and nothing really big popped up.”

Starting with engagement surveys

SANFL leadership wanted to get to know their people better and learn how to support them better – and Culture Amp’s people-science-based methodology felt like the right solution. After communicating the upcoming change and the reasons behind it to employees, they kicked things off with an engagement survey.

Belinda explains, “That really helped us start to introduce some language not just about what you're delivering in the business, but who are you in that delivering? And how are you going, and what do you need to bring the best out in you?” Questions like these inspired employees to self-reflect and helped shift the focus to a more people-centered experience.

Early in the process, the team faced some technical difficulties as they moved to the online performance environment, which Lauren emphasized is normal for organizations that previously relied on paper-based systems.

To expand on the findings from SANFL’s engagement surveys, Belinda also checked in with employees directly. She says, “I call it the ‘pub test.’ Just having some of those water cooler chats. Understanding “Hey, what's the quality of your engagement with your leader?” These conversations helped her develop a sense of what the work environment was like for those were thriving – and those who weren’t.

Customizing the templates for a perfect fit

In the first year, SANFL implemented employee goal-setting, midyear reflections, and an end-of-year review. They found that the midyear check-in helped destigmatize the end-of-year review while adding accountability.

From the beginning, they appreciated having access to Culture Amp’s templates. Belinda says, “When we looked at the performance offerings, such as the way questions were framed, we found the performance module templates to really nurture additional conversations.”

Four company values guide SANFL’s work: Authentic, Team First, Excellence, and Fun. “We have a really strong sense of connection to those values, and they're a genuine compass in our toolkit of our decision-making. It really drives some of the frameworks and engagement that we seek,” explains Belinda. It made sense to integrate the four values into the new performance system.

Culture Amp’s templates are easily customized, which allowed SANFL to introduce ways for employees to reflect on how they champion the company values. Belinda offers an example: “We loved the language it introduced about ‘What is my impact on others in the organization?’” But rather than using the question as-is, they updated it to connect the self-reflection aspect to the company’s goals and asked, “What is my contribution to the organization and our Team First value?”

Giving leaders the level of support they need

As employees reflected on how their work and their goals aligned with company values, they needed guidance on discussing these things with their managers. Before joining the Culture Amp platform, SANFL didn’t have a framework in place for employees and managers to have meaningful, aligned conversations. An employee might enter a conversation hoping to talk about a specific topic, and the leader might have a different agenda.

SANFL wanted to encourage and facilitate growth in face-to-face conversations but recognized that some of the organization’s leaders are much more experienced than others. While long-time leaders likely feel comfortable and confident in feedback conversations, templates helped greener leaders have higher quality 1-on-1s. “We've created a baseline standard that, regardless of where you're at in your leadership journey, the team has a continuity in their experience,” explains Belinda.

SANFL has also started building leadership metrics into position descriptions to hold leaders accountable to engagement survey results.

Making the most of Culture Amp resources

At first, Belinda felt overwhelmed by the process of transitioning to a new performance management platform. She remembers thinking, “I don't even know how we're going to do this. I don't know where to start.” Fortunately, she didn’t have to figure it out alone: “Culture Amp has an exceptional library of resources, tools, and implementation plans.”

A few sessions with a Culture Amp success coach showed her that SANFL could move at its own pace, launch one customized tool at a time, and monitor the results before taking the next step. “Having that insight from success coaches was key in understanding how we could take a bespoke approach,” adds Belinda.

She also talked with people who had already been through the process. “Being able to reach out to other users in the Culture Amp community was really beneficial,” she recalls. SANFL was able to learn from others’ mistakes and their wins.

Belinda offered some advice to anyone who is just beginning their performance journey: “Find the right cadence for your organization – dipping toes in the water, finding something that works, that suits the agility appetite that you want, the risk appetite that you want, and finding something that aligns with them.”

As SANFL continues to strengthen its performance process, the leadership team plans to implement additional Culture Amp tools. Next up is Shoutouts, Belinda says. “We really want to start introducing that peer-to-peer feedback, so starting to diversify where the feedback’s coming from and building that as part of our recognition framework.”